While I cover both my ears

About a month ago on a Tuesday around 4 a.m., I found myself on a two-story tour bus barreling down a Thai highway with 50 of my closest Thai friends. 

Did I mention this was a karaoke tour bus?  I didn't, did I?  Let me just visually set this up for you: Giant tour bus + disco lights + crappy speakers + 3 microphones + Thai pop + one volume level: REALLY REALLY LOUD = Work field trip!  Yep, this was for work.  And work it was.  My patience was tested, my self-control exercised, and my boundaries were in complete disregard.  But that's all part of the plan here, I suppose.  Pushing limits, changing perspective, and actively participating in another culture instead of just having a front row seat... right?

The objective of this trip was to collaborate with other Tambons (villages) in other provinces about eco/ag-tourism (one of my projects here), public health, and education. I'm sure this happened, and I know I participated by being there, but my "take away" messages, of course, were different than the trip intended, and mostly revolved around culture shock, intestinal shock, and general shock. 

Eight hours, five 7/11 stops, three renditions of the Cranberrie's Zombie (by yours truly), and a million Thai songs later, we pulled into our destination of Uthai Thani around noon.  It was your typical work meeting with name tags, packets of information, power point presentations and demonstrations of how to make bio diesel and organic alcohol (otherwise known as banana liquor.) 

Here are my co-workers (and some of their children - as school was out for the "summer") watching the demonstration of how to make banana liquor.  I think these are bottles of liquor on the table.  I'm not sure.  I'm was in the back, but you can't see me because I was dead from heatstroke.  It was 18 million degrees that day and we were in a jungle.  Even the Thai people were sweating.  Serious heat.

After the demonstrations we went back to the government offices for dinner.  Everyone scrambled (no pun intended as you will see in a second) to sit with me.  As much as I would like to think that this is because they really like me and I'm just a hell of a good time, I know that in this situation their behavior is mostly driven by their stomachs. By now, everyone knows I hate fish and Thai food, generally, makes me sick, so my table gets a fried egg whenever mass quantities of Thai food are served so I can have something to eat.  And Thais love fried eggs.  Words cannot describe the love affair Thais have with eggs.  In Thailand, eggs are abundant - in various shapes, colors, textures, temperatures, and pickled flavors.

I wrote a poem about it:

Eggs Are the New Rice

We eat them with rice, We eat them with spice

We eat them in soup, or drenched in sweet, oily goop. 

We think eggs are so nice, We eat them everyday, sometimes even twice

Because, in fact, Eggs are the new rice. 

The next day we headed for the next province, Chachoengsao.  More karaoke, more 7/11s, more Thai food, more eggs, more learning about weaving, public health, and education systems, and, then, dinner.  Then it was time to go to the beach!! 

Lucky for me, dozens of child monks decided to visit the beach that day, too.  So I got to take some pictures of a lifetime.  

Thailand is glorious and beautiful. I'm so glad I'm here... except when I have to eat things like this: